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Christine Jones has the support of Sheriff Paul Babeu in her quest to be the Queen of Mean on immigration.

Doug Ducey has Sheriff Joe Arpaio – the godfather of migrant bashing.

But you can't top Andrew Thomas when it comes to melodramatic pledges to seal the border.

The other GOP candidates also do their best to satisfy those high-efficacy GOP primary voters – the ones who rank being tough on immigration right up there with "Thou shalt not compromise."

But is immigration the top issue facing Arizona? Maybe for the one-third of registered voters who call themselves Republicans. The rest of us care more about schools, jobs and infrastructure.

That's why the winner of the GOP primary will pivot to the center for the general election. It's expected.

It's also pathetic, dishonest and symptomatic of what's wrong with our hyper-partisan political system. Candidates are either lying to the base now or they will be lying to the rest of us later. Either way, it shows a sorry lack of integrity.

Our political system – built on publicly funded partisan primaries -- discourages honestly.

It also encourages bad governance.

Promises made to primary voters cannot be entirely forgotten – especially when there's re-election to think about. Elected officials remain beholden to those they so ardently court in the primary.

What's more, the politician who spends time, energy and passion convincing the extreme right of his or her sincerity may wind up believing that stuff. It's kind of like the Stockholm Syndrome. Only with tea bags.

The real casualty in all this pandering is an honest, thoughtful debate on the challenges facing our state. And if the idea of having a thoughtful debate before choosing the state's chief executive sounds like a pipe dream, then you, too, are captive to a system that stinks.

OK. I'm picking on the GOP. Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Fred DuVal has no primary opponent. If there were a Democratic primary, you could expect to see the candidates waltzing to the left.

That's just how it is.

But it's not how is has to be.

Former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson is one of those working to give Arizona another chance to make a dramatic switch to a nonpartisan primary.

Voters rejected this idea in 2012 after an out-of-state group pumped in enough dark money to defeat it. Johnson says supporters of the idea didn't have the deep pockets to fight back.

But supporters learned from their loss. The initiative will be back in 2016, he says. This time, it will have national support, as well as support from local politicians.

This time it will be truly nonpartisan, too. If it passes, candidates will run without listing party affiliation. Primary elections will be open to all voters and include all candidates. The top two vote getters will move on to the general election.

If you want to know more, check out the phone app: Arizona Nonpartisan Movement.

If you wonder how it would work, imagine if Ducey, Jones and the rest of the GOP candidates were in the primary race with DuVal. Imagine they all were vying to win enough votes from right, left and center in order to be among the two candidates who would move on to the general election.

The primary would be about speaking to all the voters. It would not exclude the biggest voting bloc in the state: the independents who register with no party affiliation.

Imagine that.

The best reason to do it is what we have now: a bunch of GOP politicians running for Border Czar while the political pundits reassure the rest of us that, hey, those candidates really don't mean the wacky things they say.